Indonesian workers jailed for 30 months in KL
Indonesian workers jailed for 30 months in KL
Agencies, Jakarta
A Malaysian court sentenced on Monday four Indonesian migrant
workers to 30 months each for their involvement in a violent
protest over drug testing in the Nilai industrial estate in
Negeri Sembilan state on Jan. 17.
Bernama quoted the court as saying that Sedarmin Pinem, 22,
Abdul Rahman Kassim, 24, Kaswandi Kurdi, 26, and Tambar Ukur
Ginting, 25, all workers in a textile company, were proven guilty
of attacks on a number of state-owned vehicles, a crime which
carries a maximum jail term of five years.
The news agency reported that the four defendants pleaded
guilty.
The four were part of a group of 15 Indonesians arrested and
brought to justice following the rioting in Nilai.
Another stampede took place three days after the Nilai
incident, when some Indonesian 70 construction workers ran amok
at Cyberjaya south of Kuala Lumpur.
Tension has been escalating between the two neighboring
countries after Malaysia sought the deportation of some 450,000
Indonesian workers following the incidents.
To ease the strained relations, President Megawati
Soekarnoputri sent Minister of Justice and Human Rights Yusril
Ihza Mahendra for a talk with Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad
over the weekend.
A group of six House of Representatives legislators led by
Deputy Speaker Muhaimin Iskandar left on Monday for Malaysia, to
meet with members of the Malaysian parliament over the mass
deportation issue.
Yusril said after a 10-minute meeting with Mahathir that
Malaysia would only deport illegal Indonesian workers and would
allow legal ones to stay in the country.
Apparently confirming Yusril's statement, a Malaysian official
said on Monday his government remained undecided about a plan to
include legal migrant workers on the list of deportees.
"For the moment, the illegal (Indonesian) workers will be sent
home. The legal workers' (matter) is not yet decided... the
policy on the whole is to reduce migrant workers from Indonesia,"
the Malaysian Embassy's consul for immigration and labor affairs,
Mohamad Hamdi, told The Jakarta Post over the phone on Monday.
Currently, there are approximately 900,000 Indonesian workers
registered in the country, but both the Malaysian and Indonesian
governments said that Indonesians constituted some 560,000 of
769,000 legal foreign workers in Malaysia.
Foreign Affairs Minister Hassan Wirayuda will lead an
Indonesian delegation for talks with his Malaysian counterpart
Hamid Albar in Kuala Lumpur on Feb. 18. Shortly thereafter,
Minister for Manpower and Transmigration Jacob Nuwa Wea will
depart for Malaysia to meet his counterpart for the same purpose.